ian likes to have plenty of elbow-room. He cannot understand how
wealthy merchants can work in the dingy dens which serve for the offices
of many a London merchant prince. In this matter, contrary to his usual
practice, he is apt to consider the surface rather than what is beneath
it; and it is an accepted maxim in commercial circles that money spent on
buildings--which is of course borrowed in England at English rates of
interest--is amongst the cheapest forms of advertising a rising business
and keeping an established business going. Nobody in a young country has
a long memory, and nothing is so firmly established but that it may be
overthrown if it does not keep up with the times.

The general run of shops are little better than in English towns of the
same size, if we except those of some dozen drapers and ironmongers in
Melbourne, and two or three in Sydney, which are exceptionally good. Of
these it may be said that they would be creditable to London itself. Both
trades are much more comprehensive than in England. A large Melbourne
draper will sell you anything, from a suit of clothes to furniture, where
he comes into competition with the ironmonger, whose business includes
agricultural machinery, crockery and plate. The larger firms in both
these trades combine wholesale and retail business, and their shops are
quite amongst the sights of Australia. Nowhere out of an exhibition and
Whiteley's is it possible to meet so heterogeneous a collection. A
peculiarity of Melbourne is that the shop-windows there are much better
set out than is customary in England. It is not so in Sydney. Indeed
Melbourne has decidedly the best set of shops, not only in outward
appearance, but as to the variety and quality of the articles sold in
them. Next to the drapers and ironmongers, the booksellers' shops are the
most creditable. The style of the smaller shops in every colonial town is
as English as English can be. The only difference is in the prices, but
of that more anon when we go into the shops.

The river Yarra runs through the city, and is navigable as far as its
centre by coasting steamers and all but the larger sailing craft. Above
the harbour it is lined with trees and very pretty, and in spite of many
windings it is wide enough for boat-races. Below it is uninteresting, and
chiefly remarkable for the number and variety of the perfumes which arise
from the manufactories on its banks. Next to the monotony of the Suez
Canal, w